Dhaka Day1

Why are there zero tourists here? – its amazing.

Bangladesh has 8000km of navigable rivers, much more than the roads. Heading down to Sadarghat at sunset today was a bit like the M25 on a river, motorboats, ferries, barges, tankers mingling with passenger canoes (100′s of). It’s safe to say that river travel is as much a daily part of life as roads…

Which by the way are jam packed full of brightly coloured weaving and speeding cycle rickshaws. 600,000 of them. What?

Oh yeah and loads of seriously battle wounded buses that screech about loaded with people blowing their horns.

We haven’t even seen that much today but stopping for a few cha’s and trying to converse with the crowd that quickly gathers is great fun. You sail down the street bobbing in and out of the 150 million other people and there is a chorus of hello! how are you? which country? do you play cricket? Come and have tea! How are you? hello! Its great. Old Dhaka – just a maze of interesting streets full of all kinds of weird and wonderful things. Lots of great biryani and kebabs. It a fresh and exciting place to be and the rest of bangladesh has some really unique environments that still await…

Andaman Islands

Spending 9 days on the andaman islands is pretty much living in paradise. Port Blair, the capital, in middle andaman is a flight of over 2 hours from Chennai on the main land. They are really out in the middle of the ocean. You can take a boat there, which takes 3 days and apparently gets pretty dirty in that time, but gets you there none the less.  However since we were travelling with the folks we were luvky enough to have some flights paid for. PB is a really bustling place with a really mixed crowd of llocals from all over. Theres a landscaped jetty area with a parade and canons and statues of various people who have conquered the islands. That first night I saw a meteorite, although I don’t know whether it burned out or not, but an incredibly bright and low shooting star. From Port Blair theres loads of islands you can go to.  The one with most accomodation and dive schools is Havelock about 30 x 50km, but  south andaman and neil island and several others are reachable by ferry and will be outrageously beautiful as well. During the 2 and half hour ferry ride we saw dolphins and loads of flying fish. As you follow the coast of havelock to the jetty there are zero biuldings in view, just beaches, palms trees and a riased centre of hills covered in big trees. Only about a fifth of the island is inhabited, follow the tiny road for a while and it just ends in the jungle. The beaches are unnamed, refered to as beaches number 1 to 7. Theres  one road on the island. There a string of resorts which wooden huts to kip in, and local fresh fish everywhere to eat in most places. You can go to the fish market and chose a fish, 90 rups a kilo, and have a guy cook it for you over some hots coals next door for next to nothing. 2 quid for a whole fresh curried barbequed barracuda… but you can eat much cheaper than that. Iisland mangoes are delicious and sold for 20 rupees a kilo in the market. Kathryn dveloped an addiction to these that threatened to turn nasty.

As I said the place is paradise, the beaches are so clean, the water starts from a beautifully deep dark clear blue and turns green and then completely transparent on the beaches. The sand is so unbelievably soft. Palms trees line some beaches, mangroves others and huge banyon and teak trees others. We went with Dave and Karen to Elephant beach, littered with bare upended root bowls of trees flattened by the tsunami and went snorkelling to look at the colourful reef fish and coral that lines the island, but the best stuff is reached by boat.

Our first dive was at south button, a rock with a few palm trees sticking out of the ocean 2 hours by slow noisy boat from Havelock, passing between the mangroved coasts of the nieghbouring Lawrence islands. Beneath the surface of south button is a beautiful bright coral garden and its accompanying plethora of iridescent reef fish. Visibility 25m and picture perfect. We were down for 64 minutes and got round about half of the island. Next The Wall. It’s 40 quid for 2 dives in a day. The next dive was Johnny’s Gorge, much deeper, with large rocks coming out of the sandy bottom. Mega strong current but the fish didn’t seem to mind. It was like being in an aquarium, just amazing, schools of tuna and huge trevally and so many others, a huge white tipped shark and all round amazingness. On the way back we dived an enormous coral garden called Minerva that just went on and on with colour and life. Nothing clues on the surface in either case, just GPS. There are 27 recognised dive sites and we went to 4 and they were all amazing.

On the 5th day we headed back to Port Blair to see Dave and Karen off who I must thank for their great company, transporting us into a world of luxury during their visit and apologise to for dragging them across southern india with a series of epic journeys!

Unfortunately we missed Holi on those two diving days, and came back to the island to find paint all over cars, roads, buildings and especially people. From head to toe in these colourful paints that every shop sells for the 2 days festival. It’s the whole of India 2 day festival of paint throwing. Simple as that! Being full of young people from various places and all of the above, its easy to understand why we didn’t want to leave.

But the Visa runs out in 4 days and theres 1800km to travel and a stop to make in Calcutta (14.7 million) to get new visa before we head into Bangladesh . We’re on the train now having spent yesterday in the mental markets in Georgetown in Chennai, which is a friendly city of 12 million. A road for steel, a road for bile parts, a road for rice, a road for lentils, a road for fruit, spices.. and a small army of men with carts, trailers, and bicycles and cows to deliver them. Everything manual, amazing place.

So in BD there’s some nice tribal hills area, coast, and the 100mile wide Ganges delta which should be a fairly unique environment, and Kat to visit in her Burmese refugee camp. We finally met some people on Havelock who had good things to say about Bangladesh which has us really excited. However everyone has agreed that the 150 million people  who live there, 83% of whom are muslim,  speak little English, have everything written in Arabic, no tourism infrastructure, shocking roads, awful pollution, no beer and insist you wear clothes to keep covered up in the sticky heat. So it should be an interesting 4 weeks really!

Kerala

From Goa we moved south onto Gokarna into the neighbouring state of Karnataka.

Palm fringed paradise of 3 beaches inaccessible by road. Its a backpacher place, not many locals. Lots of Yoga and Ayurveda, travelling musicians jamming, tablas and sitars, another sore place to leave. Did my first yoga session there which I enjoyed until I fell asleep.

We had a total panic because we didnt reach the top of the waiting list for our train to Cochin to meet our parents. Since arriving 24hrs late was out of the question, we set out by taxi for the station anyway. On the way we stopped at every bank, and failed every time. On arrival at the station we were told it was impossible to get on the train. We got back into the cab, now around midnight, hundreds of miles away with no money and things were looking grim. Another lap of the town got us some money using a credit card. We went to the bus station and found a bus to Mangalore which arrived at 4am. There we got a room for a few hours and bought a bus ticket for that afternoon and spent all that night on a “sleeper” bus to cochin, arriving at the homestay about an hour before the folks – skills.

Kerala is a lovely place, very green and very humid, great mountains and amazing backwaters. They have an ancient form of martial arts and this mad dance/theatre called kathakali.

We spent 3 days in Fort Cochin, penned in by the sea around this small peninsula, with a constant flow of ships and ferries. An old colonial place, that’s been ruled by just about everyone, with loads of white churches and a maze of streets, Hindu temples, a mosque, a synagogue, Christian churches and Syrian Christian churches and Dutch churches. Lots of nice places to eat and drink. All over Kerala and in Fort Cochin there are these Chinese fishing nets, which are strung up in the air on massive beams and lowered into the water when the tide is high like a drawbridge. They raise the nets and collect the fish and tourists point and take photos, which must be quite annoying really. Here is a photo…

There was a small fish market just next to them and we bought some fish and prawn which Diane cooked in Keralan style wrapped in banana leaves at the homestay…

It was great to see Mum and Karen and Dave.

From Cochin we headed to Alleppey. A town on the edge of lake Verbalam which is part of a massive system of rivers and canals, one of 3 in Kerala to take a houseboat and observe the villages and life along the river. The old converted rice barges are fun to spent the day and night on– sitting under a bamboo shade on armchairs with a drink and watching the eagles and kingfishers and paddy fields and fishing and washing and people going to school and getting around on ferries and loads of lush foliage. The villages on these narrow strips of land where the river is just the source of everything – food, where you wash and clean your teeth, fish, building materials. Its beautiful.

Next we went to Varkala. Red cliffs and nice beach, amazing hotel with a pool. Not much exploration was done here… Only down to eat in the restaurants on the beach where you pick you’re fish and then it’s cooked in the tandoor oven and is so deliciously fresh.

Next a mission into the mountains which run for a long way down near the West coast of Southern India, into the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.

Ooty – 2100m high in the Western Ghat’s, is was refreshingly cool. Theres a great mountain railway there where you chug through the tea plantations and valleys to Conoor. We went to stay in a remote hotel on the steep slope in the middle of an active tea plantation. Loads of wildlife. We took a jeep for a night safari in Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary and saw loads of animals including many wild elephants and a TIGER.

We headed back to Cochin and stayed in Ernakulum to see mum off. The noisy, stinking place is mostly notable for an amazing restaurant that we ate in every night..

Mums visit was really great. My brothers and sisters came to look after dad at various points so that mum could get away. It was a special time, relaxed and good fun, a much needed holiday! Just such a shame that my Dad couldn’t be there, we really missed him. I was sad to see her go. We had a really good time the 5 of us.

I headed back into the hills with Kathryn, Karen and Dave to Munnar, which is a gorgeous place, and then into Tmail Nadu again. Tamils speak another language and have much darker skin and descend from dravidians so all their temples have a particular style.

Madurai is a small Indian city of about a million people. Its famous for the shree Meenakshi temple, and rightly so.

There’s a great Ghandi museum there where I learnt loads about the raj and partition of India. From there we headed to Pondicherry.

Goa

19th December

8 hours on a bus to the border with India at Sanauli.

3 hours to Gorakpur next morning. Wait. Train to Mumbai 33 hours. Wait. Change. Train to Goa 10 hours. Now we are on holiday….

As you probably know our friends Martin and Baptiste came to visit and we had a really good time. Chilling and eating and swimming in south Goa where the food was amazing and then upping sticks on New Years Day in the morning (not easy) and travelling to North Goa to for the music and parties. We certainly found it and that day at Hilltop was an absolute belter!  They say Goa has changed alot and not so good now but we went to some parties that pretty much put any I have ever been to to shame. Music, people, culture, atmosphere, location. Then back to our gaff on the white sand beach surrounded by palm trees and jungle. Not a bad lifestyle. There’s so many people who go back time and again, I dont think it will be my last visit. Arpora saturday night market. Big stage in the center of the market for live music with different acts on during the night, with a beer bar and cocktail bar either side. Amazing international food area and then 100’s of stalls with unique and great local and foreign artists plying their wares. Bar in one corner with techno DJs playing to loads of people dancing  and cheering – not your average market! Palm trees, Old portugese forts lost in the jungle, lakes, beach huts, goan food, lagoons and alot more palm trees!! Goa. Why does Austin go back every year?

Thanks

Hope this finds everyone in good health and spirits. Its been a long time since Christmas when I last dropped a line.  As i said despite the dolphins, beaches, food and sunsets on the beaches I still missed home and all the fun of getting together over Christmas. Mum tells me it was a lot of fun with a strong turn out this year!

Thanks for all the birthday messages. Guess Kathryn has been hassling you a bit – sorry. I was in a hill station called Munnar in the tea and spice plantations. In the morning we went for a hike up the through cardamom plantations and then along a ridge and down into the village, then hired a motorbike and rode around for a couple of hours and got on it back at the Hotel. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine my headache would be so mild the day after my 30^th birthday! Kathryn made me a card with all your messages and it was really great to hear from y’all. She drew a picture of everyone and i had to guess who it was which was funny. (the bearded, hairy drummer was easy). Mostly though it was touching to read the messages and think of you all back home. I miss you, although its good here.

Im in Pondicherry now which is a former french colony which is a really chilled place, amazingly compared to the other indian cities I’ve been to and the food, being french, is great. They have their own licensing laws so beer and wine is easy to come by and doesn’t involve a trip to a seedy government liquor store. Its a bit of a lottery whether a hotel or town has a bar in Tamil Nadu so we’ve had to get smart to get a drink, often planning in advance. No-one has been more rigorous about this than kathryns dad. Since cows are holy and wonder the streets at their own will, steak has definately been off the menu for some time – a welcome return. It has shaded boulevardes, coffee shops and a great shoreline. The marine parade has this huge Ghandi memorial with cardved pillares around it, and kids climbing all over it, theres 2 lighthouses  and an amazing rooftop restaurant to watch it all happen. Unfortunately we all caught a bug there and it took some time to recover. We headed up to Chennai to fly to the Andaman Islands.

Thinking of you!

Christmas Day

Hi family and friends especially everyone at Wildwood! Happy Christmas from Patnem in South Goa!

Well its been a sublime day here so far today:

rose around midday to beautiful sunshine and jungle sounds (including the ubiquitous howling dogs and cockrels of India) and studied the frogs in the bathroom.

Baptiste is here and loving the feeling of warmth and sand under the feet and its great to see him.

Headed down to Columb bay which is a super quiet, pretty, rocky bay about 2 mins walk from our rooms. Sat up on some straw mats and lounged in a place called Laguna Vista which is a french Nepali couple’s beach restaurant. Loads of places here are run by exotic people who have chosen this life and look good for it! Really chilled music and french cuisine, fresh juices and some local port wine under the airy bamboo roof – christmas breakfast in Goa.

There’s a live music tonight and the seafood platter is looking ridiculously good so we have taken a table there for tonight. Turns out we’ve visited the Nepali guy’s home town and after throwing in  a few Nepali phrases we are on special treatment list!!

Apart from that mostly swimming and playing frisbee to work up an appetite!!!!

Somehow still jealous of the Christmas lunch and get togther back home though! Maybe you can set me a plate and freeze it for when I get home?

Love to everyone.

Si

Khumbu Trek

I’ve only got half an hour to get something down about the last trek I did in Nepal which I finished about a week ago. Half an hour to try to convey how utterly amazingly wonderful it was for so many reasons. The Khumbu is the district in Nepal where Everest, Lhotse, Cho Oyu, Makalu and Ama Dablam are, making some of the most unbelieveable mountain scenery, that you can get incredibly close to.

I went to the Khumbu last time in Nepal, and it still rates up there with the most amazing place i have ever been to and this time brought it all back home!

It was a trek of 2 halves

I chose to walk in from tumlingtar which s a really quiet route to the park enetrance and takes about 8 days. I landed on a grass runway and wnet to a currugated iron shack – the arrivals lounge to have my naggage ticket ripped in 2 and thrown onto the grass with all the the others. The plane held 12 and it was a clear day and the panorame across the himalaya was really big.

The 7 days it took me to get to amche, the start f the high altitude bit mostly involved me walking through rai villages, talking and laughing and especially and asking for directions with the locals, loving the wonderful scenery and walking along feeling ecstatically happy. I never felt lonely or threatened, although i did feel lost quite alot of the time, climbing several large hills only to have to descend afytera lot of hand waving and repeating of my destination. I did find the most perfect waterfall shower on one of my wrong turns though. There were no tourist facilities and i ate and slept in the same places as locals who were headed on the same trail and spent nothing. I ate Dhal Bhat, sometimes twice in a day, the other food being 1 minute noodles soup. Nepalis dont eat breakfast but absolutely stuff themselves at night to compensate. Up at dawn and straight off. I had 4 passes to get over and alot of ground to cover and loved the exercise and the adfventure and all the people i met whereever i stopped. There were 2 guys who i met on the first day, and every day thereafter – Nishan and Narayen. They invited me to come and stay at their village where I had just a brilliant time bewfore heading on with a huge flower garlard, my second of the week!

It was completely depressing to get t Namche – huge lodges along the trail with menus and tourists who dont even know where they are or where or carry their own bags. I’d hardly spoken any english but relly couldnt be bothered to speak to some of the first people i met. Fortunately that night i met some swiss people who were really chilled and i started to get into my new lifestyle, and the choice of food, especially yak steak and chips, and coffee, and beer, and comfortable beds, and actually started to like it. The valley leading t namche is amazing, yet another huge clear river with tall pines eveywhere and for the first time on the trek big snowy mountains soaring up into the air. After a few days I met up with kathryn nd we headed up into the high stuff. Itsd tough at high altitude and we took it easy for a few nights until we were sleeping “comfortably” at 4400m. We spent this time in the Thame valley – the quietest one of the 3 in the park, mostly yaks and tibetans heading into or out of tibet trading the goods strapped to their animals and camping in the freezing air. Yaks are reallt great animals.

What followed was 8 days of high after high as we took in what the khumbu has to offer and walked our asses off to make the very most of the time we had left, and I’m still feeling pretty inspired and gobsmacked at that place.

Im down in Goa now, about to go and meet up with Baptiste, tyhe 4 days of constant transport getting dowen here was a big rest and now it feels like we are on holiday at last. So warm and great food and loads of parties…. It se3ems like the perfect place to enjoy Christmas so Happy Christmas everyone, i’m having a brilliant time, love to everyone!!! Gotta go or we will be late. As ever this does not in any way do the places we went to or the people we met justice but had to0 get something down. Have fun enjoy. xxxx